Wheeler and Hartnett-White Are Dangers to The Truth, Our Clean Air and Water, and The Climate

WASHINGTON D.C.-- Today, Andrew Wheeler, nominee for Deputy Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, and Kathleen Hartnett-White, nominee for Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, testified in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

During the hearing, Wheeler and Hartnett-White repeatedly dodged answers to questions and denied the impacts of human activities on climate change and of pollution on human health.

Andrew Wheeler is a big time lobbyist who has represented Big Coal for almost a decade, including in numerous lawsuits challenging the EPA. Since 2009, Wheeler has been defending a company that: violated labor laws and worker safety standards at its mines; sued the government to block life-saving clean air protections; has tried to mine for coal in our parks; has consistently called very real, very dangerous threats to our health, such as acid rain and climate change, hoaxes; and has labeled life-saving proposals to toughen emission standards as criminal fraud.

“Wheeler is a friend to polluters, not to American families that rely on clean air and clean water,” said Matthew Gravatt, Sierra Club’s Associate Legislative Director. “He’s spent his career challenging the vital lifesaving environmental protections that keep our air and water clean so that we can keep our families safe. Wheeler was not only a key D.C. advocate for the coal industry, but also a former aide for outspoken climate-denying senator James Inhofe. On top of all this, he continued his baseless claims today about his so-called support for science and scientists. He is a dangerous pick and unfit for the job.”

The role of Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which Hartnett-White has been nominated for, is to advise the President on how to best protect the health of our environment and our families. While Hartnett-White served as the Chairman and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and member of the Texas Water Development Board from 1999 to 2001, she made decisions favorable to polluters, not Texans. Hartnett-White oversaw the TCEQ practice of intentionally under-reporting levels of radiation in water and allowed at least 35 violations to go unreported, stated we don’t need limits on carbon emissions and called carbon dioxide the “gas of life”, praised vehicle tailpipe pollution, criticized the Clean Air Act, and voted to allow construction of a new coal plant despite pollution concerns.

“With Trump and Pruitt’s numerous attacks on our environmental safeguards, it’s clear Trump needs an advisor who won’t bend to the will of big polluters,” said Gravatt. “However, it would be a gross inaccuracy to say Kathleen Hartnett-White cares about the quality of our environment. Hartnett-White, who has gone so far as to call CO2 the ‘gas of life’ and oversaw the intentional under-reporting of radiation levels in water, has shown a callous disregard for the health of our families throughout her career, will advise the President on how to dismantle key environmental safeguards and put our families at risk.”

“There’s absolutely no doubt about it: both Wheeler and Hartnett-White are extremely dangerous picks for public health and American families,” concluded Gravatt. “The Senate must reject these nominations.”